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Zamoonda
Zamoonda is the identity of a user that has perpetuated numerous instances of Ponychan drama by trying to influence the site with subterfuge, psychological manipulation, and carefully schemed false identities. He was officially admin for one day on May 11, 2012 under the capcode !!Cadence ''with his real identity and later came back as the fake identity of a girl from London by the moniker "Aurroria," whom was the !!SweetieBelle mod until his identity reveal got him fired on the 19th of May. Zamoonda, along with all of his associated identities have been permabanned from numerous sites - Ponychan for countless reasons, MLPchan for attempting to bribe the admin with a pirated mod board, and Gyropedia for sockpuppeting in a private chat with an active admin that caused him to take a leave of absence. Zamoonda / !!Cadence ## Admin In the second half of 2011, a user named Zamoonda started frequenting Ponychan. While he browsed several areas like /fic/ and a handful of serials, he quickly began to primarily occupy /meta/. Over time he began to accumalate influence among the staff, but mostly with the then-administrator, Orange Blaze (!!Celestia.) Zamoonda began to influence policy and decisions as the year went on, both through influencing other /meta/ users through his de-fact 'leadership' of the eponymous Skype group and serial thread, and staff as well as his connection to the admin, who even semi-officially titled him as his "personal advisor." He ingratiated himself through overtures towards the administrator's decisions, supporting and backing up the choices being made, as well as through levying references towards his experience as an 'admin' himself of several World of Warcraft private servers. Orange's personal advisor While Orange Blaze himself on several occasions privately commented on how, quote, 'conniving' and 'slick' and 'manipulative' the individual was , he maintained him as his advisor as he was undoubtedly his greatest supporter throughout the very controversial and unpopular decisions and policies at the time, as well as through a great deal of drama over poor administrative choices . Zamoonda also began a relationship with one of the then-moderators of the site, Dragon Rage (!!Pinkie Pie), and he attempted to utilize his boyfriend's mod-cookie to access the modboard without the admin's knowledge or consent , then was later secretly supplied with them by Orange without the remaining staffs' consent . He also began what he characterized himself as 'social engineering' of as many subcommunities and groups as he could. He went as far as to subtly threaten an off-site private Steam group for one subcommunity with threat of blackmail regarding their home board if they did not delete their own private group. Throughout this time, it was later revealed that he had been working his way towards an official status with the site, commenting on his 'role' on several third-party sites and private blogs, as well as commenting extensively in private at the 'obstacles' to his goal, namely several members of the staff and specific users he deemed to be opposed to him, and how they may need to be 'removed' before he could go forward . One specific staff of note he strongly desired to remove was Moony (!!Fluttershy), as he viewed his idealism and populist beliefs to be contrary to his often displayed preference for authoritarianism and uniliteral decision-making and administration. While there were several controversial and questionable circumstances regarding the individual themselves, one example being the claims about time spent in combat as an Isreali soldier and time spent in the "jungles of Vietnam", the most controversial aspects were clearly in relation to their unspoken position of authority over others and the belief among the handful who were aware of it regarding their intentions. While logs would later emerge seeming to show a reluctance to accept full control, this may be due primarily to their also stated desire to have control and authority in unofficial ways, as he expressly stated in later logs he felt himself in a stronger position without the burden of official status (and that the staff 'rightfully' feared such an unassailable status .) Aborted administrative handoff Later on, in the spring of 2012, the then-admin !!Celestia began to become absent more and more frequently, to the point of taking vacations from the site even during scheduled breaks from it. While it was no surprise he had begun to question his own desire to stay working on the site, incidents like the February 2012 near-deletion of the site had nearly brought the entire community to the brink of extinction. In May, Orange Blaze made the choice, suddenly, to hand the site to his 'personal advisor' and unofficial heir Zamoonda . This decision split the staff into two general camps; those who had become apathetic towards matters, especially towards this situation, and those who vehemently opposed this choice. The former camp was occupied, for example, by Fenolio (!!Angelbunny at the time), who, while not a supporter of the choice (the only known supporter of the decision being Zamoonda's then-boyfriend !!PinkiePie), decided there was nothing he could do to help prevent it. The latter camp's most vocal member was !!Fluttershy. The staff who actively opposed the choice went to several users for help in the matter, notably members like Storm Vision, Anonthony and Guardian, however to some observers it seemed too late - as Orange had already given Zamoonda the administrative access code as well as entrance into the mod chat, despite having already been aware of the unauthorized access to the staff board and actions taken on it without any official capacity or consent . The opposed individuals pleaded with Orange Blaze to change his mind, and those on the staff actively opposed proposals that started to be raised immediately. Some members began to search for (and easily find) evidence regarding Zamoonda and questionably histories and facts regarding them. Some of the most pressing pieces of evidence showed that the individual had been involved in major controversies in other communities, notably the WoW scene in which they were a member, regarding administrative takeovers as well as numerous hirings/firings of the individual and controversy regarding their behavior and actions as an administrator. Logs as well began to emerge showing what seemed like boasting about the ability to block staff nominations, appoint their own choices and issue bans well before any official position had been given, as well as several bizarre logs discussing how Zamoonda had 'pretended' to be several people and admission to having used multiple identities in managing and running a WoW community . In addition, several 'dossier' files were leaked that they had been maintaining, with the understanding that there were hundreds of such. These dossier files contained personal information on the current staff and on all users they deemed to be of note, with data ranging from their real-life names, locations, histories, real-life pictures of them, whether or not they were 'friend' or 'enemy', and other personal matters. After a great deal of discussion and pleading, Orange relented. He re-entered the moderator Skype chat and had Zamoonda leave, and he re-entered the administrative access to the site. Multiple identities After these incidents, it was further revealed that the individual named "Zamoonda" was not actually one individual at all. Rather, 'they' were a group of people, five if the matter is true, who all utilized the same name/tripcode, the same proxy IP and the same Skype account, in order to work together to acheive their goals as one person . For a full year, members and those who counted themselves as friends or acquaintances had been talking, confiding and working with nearly half a dozen individuals when they were all under the impression it was one, single person. Shortly after these incidents, one of the members of the group allegedly committed suicide; however this remains yet another controversial and disputed aspect . Also after their removal, it was later found that they maintained unauthorized access to the staff board without the knowledge of the administration or staff. This was discovered in an incident in the fall of 2012. One of the members of the group made attempts to 'hack' the staff board of the then-relatively newer sister site MLPchan . After the attempts to access the staff-only sections of the site failed, they made an overture to the administrator in attempt to be given access to MLPchan's staff board, with the reward for doing so being that access would be granted to MLPchan to the unauthorized version of Ponychan's staff board. As proof that they had the latter , Zamoonda sent a portion of the Ponychan modboard, showing posts and updates right up to September, 2012, the very time that the offer was made. Instead of accepting this offer, the administrator passed this information in full on to the staff of Ponychan, who promptly cut off this unauthorized access. Aftermath Throughout much of time during the aborted administrative handoff, mentions of Zamoonda, or information about him/them, was a bannable offense, and while mentions now have not been met with bans, the full disclosure on the matter remained secretive up until the Aurroria revelation, with speculation dominating what little discussion has been had since. For themselves, the members of the Zamoonda group state they are no longer involved in matters and have largely left the community, though "Frosthowler", one of the members aliases, was very visibly seen in Ponychan's recent attempt to create a reddit serial thread, and "Typhoon", another, was up until recently a SysAdmin of this wiki , and "Pendragon", another, is active up to the current date of this entry on it, and multiple members of the group have been seen on both Ponychan and MLPchan in various capacities, primarily the respective /meta/ and /site/ site-issues boards. In regards to the incidents that have occured, explanations have not been given for most, though in regards to the aborted handoff, some allege it to have been an 'experiment', designed by the administrator to 'test' some of his staff; though this would seem to many to simply be passing off the matter as a rather tasteless act by !!Celestia rather than any blame for themselves. This explanation as well is disputed, and a full account with the considerations of all sides included on the entire matter - from the beginning to now - has not been forthcoming by any party involved, officially or otherwise, and the divisiveness of the incidents that have occured over the course of the last year can be considered a root cause for much of the drama and problems many have experienced, to say nothing of the general nature of secrecy and lack of transparency that has been the manner in which all such incidents are typically handled within the community. Those observers outside the majority of the incidents often seemed surprised or shocked to hear of any of the matter, some having never heard of any of it despite extensive time spent on the site before, during and after it, and frequently express bewilderment at the lack of explanation, straight information or transparency with the intent of settling matters or putting them to rest. Throughout this time until the revelation of their identity as Aurroria / !!Sweetie Belle ## Mod, various incarnations of Zamoonda were seen around Ponychan related issues; reddit posts, MLPchan threads related to Ponychan, /meta/ issues (anonymously) and other various dramatics and agendas. As Aurroria / !!SweetieBelle ## Mod ''See main article: '!!SweetieBelle'. On May 19, 2013, the-then !!SweetieBelle mod of Ponychan (a user named Aurroria who had ostensibly come from /rp/), banned the user Lillyflowers from the /pony/ after dark serial for 2 days for mentioning Zamoonda. In a private conversation afterwards, Aurroria said some somewhat suspicious things, which Lillyflowers took to Anonthony (!!Applejack ## Admin of MLPchan). Anonthony investigated Aurroria's identity, suspicious at some phrasing 'she' had used. A trace of "her" accounts showed that her real IP was from the same city and ISP as Zamoonda, in Israel. A subsequent search of "her" posting IP on Ponychan revealed it to be a proxy - the same proxy used by Typhoon (Zamoonda) to post on MLPchan, attempt to hack it's modboard and attempt to bribe MLPchan with promises of access to a hacked version of Ponychan's modboard. This would lead to the conclusion that Typhoon = Pendragon = Aurroria = Zamoonda, adding yet another false identity to the list, and a nearly year long deception on the site, it's community and staff, this time with the result of having been made a moderator, with full server access. !!SweetieBelle was approached by then-admin !!Lyra and presented with the acknowledgement of 'her' true identity, Zamoonda, and was fired immediately after . This information was brought to a handful of concerned users, who then brought it to the Ponychan staff. The next day, !!Lyra issued the following statement , having removed Aurrorria/!!Sweetie Belle (Zamoonda) from the mod team and the site, and along with help from MLPchan's system administrator Macil (!!Littlepip) securing the server from any potential backdoors he may have left behind. The original /meta/ thread, much to the aftershock of the userbase exploded with 1000 replies in the first 24 hours . A sister thread received a massive number of replies as well on efchan's /ef/ board . It even attracted a few anons from /mlp/ on the matter. In the aftershock from the latter of the Zamoonda fiasco, the staff of both Ponychan and MLPchan take their mod nomination process with a more cautious effort, ensuring that said user has an extensive history of being associated with the site and that said identity is genuine, and said motives are sincere. References After all evidence mysteriously disappeared one day, this section has been completely rewritten with inline citations, and all evidence is now saved in backups. A few things are still missing here though. Category:Users Category:Staff